Today's NWA Times feature article

[Betsy]

There is an interesting story in today's (Sunday, March 5) NWA Times about a local writer who, although a skeptic, uncovered a story about a spirit who contacted his parents every night for 15 years. The skeptic writer has a book published by the UA Press about it. Here's the article, which I thought would make for a good discussion here.

http://www.nwarktimes.com/nwat/living/38156/

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Here's where I lose Doug & DAR's respect. I have had psychic experiences - most members of my family have - and this includes contact with my mother after she died. My sister has had contact with her son after he died, and received through him a message from our deceased father for me - she didn't understand the message, because she had no idea of the situation I was in at the time - but I did. My comment on the story is that I have no idea whether or not whoever they were in touch with was actually their son, but if the planchet had been moved by Henry, even unconsciously, he could have done it by himself - since it took both parents for the writing, I'd say they had real contact with an "other planar entity" whose aim was to bring comfort into their lives.

[Dardedar]

Here's where I lose Doug & DAR's respect. I have had psychic experiences - most members of my family have - and this includes contact with my mother after she died...

DAR
You don't lose respect (well I am a little surprised), I used to have all of those beliefs and more. I had at least a dozen books on astral travel alone. I was up to my eyeballs in the New Age and psychic beliefs.

Then I decided to take a peek behind the curtain and see if there were people studying and checking up on these claims. There were. But more importantly I also to made the very scary decision to educate myself about the myriad ways that I, and other humans, fool themselves. I think in a lifetime you can only scratch the surface.

Consider this little blurb Barbara. Susan Blackmore is one of the few people to have a PhD in parapsychology, she is known for impeccable honesty and has managed to be well respected by the skeptic and paranormal community over the several decades she has worked with both:

***
Giving Up the Ghosts: End of a Personal Quest

"At last. I've done it. I've thrown in the towel, kicked the habit, and gone on the (psychic) wagon. After thirty years I have escaped from a fearsome addiction.
Come to think of it I'm not sure I've gone cold turkey yet. Only last month I was at my last psychical research conference. Only days ago did I empty out the last of those meticulously organized filing cabinets, fighting a little voice that warned: "Don't do it--you might want to read that again" as a great wave of relief swept it away with the thought "You've given up!" Paper after paper on ESP, psychokinesis, psychic pets, aromatherapy, and haunted houses hit the recycling sack. If the cold turkey does strike, the dustbin men will have taken away my fix.
Actually I feel slightly sad. Thirty years ago I had the dramatic out-of-body experience that convinced me of the reality of psychic phenomena--and launched me on a crusade to show all those closed-minded scientists that consciousness could reach beyond the body and death was not the end. Just a few years of careful experiments changed all that. I found no psychic phenomena--only wishful thinking, self-deception, experimental error, and even an occasional fraud. I became a skeptic.
So why didn't I just give up then? There are lots of bad reasons. Admitting you are wrong is always hard--even though it's a skill that every scientists has to learn (or are some scientists always right?) But it does get easier with practice and I no longer fear having to change my mind. Starting again as a baby in a new field is a daunting prospect. So is losing all the status and power of being an expert. I have to confess I enjoy my hard-won knowledge. Yes, I have read Michael Faraday's 1853 report on table tipping, and the first 1930's studies in parapsychology, and the latest arguments over meta-analysis of computer-controlled ESP experiments, not to mention the infamous Scole report (New Scientist, January 22, 2000). Should I feel obliged to keep using this knowledge if I can? No. Enough is enough. None of it ever gets anywhere. That's good enough reason for leaving.
But perhaps the real reason is that I am just too tired--tired, above all, of working to maintain an open mind. I couldn't dismiss all those extraordinary claims out of hand. After all, they just might be true, and if they were true then whole swatches of science would have to be rewritten.
Another psychic claimant turns up. I must devise more experiments, take his claims seriously. He fails--again. I see a picture of Cherie Blair wearing her "bio-electric shield." It matters that people pay high prices for fake gadgets. I run the tests. The shields don't work. No one wants to know, for negative results aren't news. A man explains to me how alien abductors implanted something in the roof of his mouth. Tests show it's just a filling--but it might have been....
No, I don't have to think that way any longer. And when the psychics and clairvoyants and New Agers shout at me (as they do), "The trouble with all you scientists is you don't have an open mind," I won't be upset. I won't argue. I won't rush out and do yet more experiments just in case. I'll smile sweetly and say, "I don't do that anymore." --Susan Blakmore, Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 2001, pg. 25

Sue Blackmore is a freelance writer, lecturer and broadcaster, and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of the West of England, Bristol. She has a degree in psychology and physiology from Oxford University (1973) and a PhD in parapsychology from the University of Surrey (1980). Her research interests include memes and the theory of memetics, evolutionary theory, consciousness, and meditation. She no longer works on the paranormal.

http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/

[Doug]

Here's where I lose Doug & DAR's respect.

DOUG
Dar and I base our beliefs on the evidence. We have looked at evidence for the paranormal for years. There isn't any credible evidence that there is any such thing as a paranormal phenomenon. Zero. Zip. After a century of scientific, meticulous, often well-funded, psychic testing, the results are in: the paranormal believers have NOTHING.

Most fields of study began this way: there is a phenomenon that is not fully explainable (electricity, magnetism, insanity, cancer, etc.). People want to know what causes it. They study the phenomenon and formulate hypotheses. These guesses are tested. Those that pass the test become theories, and so on.

In parapsychology, the "field of study" has not even been able to show that there is a phenomenon. This, after over 100 years of study. Zip. Zero. Nothing.

I base my beliefs on that evidence. There is nothing unrespectable about that. You might say that I have overlooked some evidence. Fair enough. I'll look at it. You might say that you can produce evidence. OK, do so. But it would be erroneous to assume that Darrel or I simply dismissed the supernatural out of hand. Like Darrel, I used to believe in the paranormal. I changed my mind for the same reason Susan Blackmore and Darrel Henschell did. There was no credible evidence for it. Produce credible evidence and I'll change my mind again.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

That's why I'm not entirely sure paranormal phenomena are testible (at least by the means we currently have/use). And to a certain extent, considering the number of frauds out there, I'm not sure I care. I'm not going to go through the time, energy, etc. Dr. Blackmore did to prove it, nor am I going to hop up and down over people who don't believe it. I believe because I have evidence. However, said evidence is not replicable. It is not something I "do" and whenever it has occurred, it has been in response to something going on in my life that is also not (thank who or whatever) replicable. Since my evidence is personal and not replicable, I do not expect anyone else to take it as evidence - though I will admit I don't enjoy being told it didn't happen - I can only present it as my experience when the subject comes up.

[Doug]

I have had psychic experiences - most members of my family have - and this includes contact with my mother after she died.

DOUG
Claims like this have been examined for decades. People interpret things as "signs" quite readily, especially in a time of grief. In one case, two grieving parents who had lost their son were asked a dozen questions by "psychic" James van Praagh, who was making bad guesses the whole time, before he finally guessed how their son died. And still they thought that he had contacted their dead son. Those who want to believe will see "signs" where there are none.

My sister has had contact with her son after he died, and received through him a message from our deceased father for me - she didn't understand the message, because she had no idea of the situation I was in at the time - but I did. My comment on the story is that I have no idea whether or not whoever they were in touch with was actually their son, but if the planchet had been moved by Henry, even unconsciously, he could have done it by himself - since it took both parents for the writing, I'd say they had real contact with an "other planar entity" whose aim was to bring comfort into their lives.

DOUG
The phenomenon of moving the planchette on the Ouija board without knowing that you are doing so is well known. It is called the ideomotor effect. This is easily tested, and there is nothing mysterious about it.

http://www.randi.org/encyclopedia/ideom ... ffect.html

It is interesting regarding the Ouija board that spirits never know anything that isn't already known by the sitters (those doing the seance, in this case, the operators of the planchette). Spirits will tell you all kinds of "deep" and "important" information, but hide a tennis ball in a room without the sitters knowing where it is, and all of a sudden the spirit pleads ignorance--or it becomes indignant and refuses to tell you.

Try asking the spirits where Grandpa's lost will and testament is and you get the same response.

In addition, if the spirit guides your hand on the board, why is it that if the sitters are blindfolded the spirit begins to speak gibberish?

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Doug, I never said there weren't frauds - there are a whole lot of them - however, the situation you describe wasn't mine. As to the psychomotor movement of planchets - that's why I said if it took both of them to get the response it probably was valid, but if it only took one of them it probably wasn't. Unless, of course, you're suggesting that the two grieving parents' subconsciouses got together on the astral plane to decide what they were going to say, which I doubt.

The problem with this discussion - it's on another thread as well - is that the kind of experiences I've had are not replicable. That makes them untestible. If it cannot be tested, it cannot be proved or disproved. It's fine for you to say that they are not true because they cannot be proved, and even that everything testible has been proven false - no problem - but they are my experiences and I will not deny them.

[Doug]

Doug, I never said there weren't frauds - there are a whole lot of them - however, the situation you describe wasn't mine.

DOUG
Yes, there are frauds, but in the case of dowsing, which also works on the ideomotor effect, most people who engage in it are sincere but mistaken.

As to the psychomotor movement of planchets - that's why I said if it took both of them to get the response it probably was valid, but if it only took one of them it probably wasn't. Unless, of course, you're suggesting that the two grieving parents' subconsciouses got together on the astral plane to decide what they were going to say, which I doubt.

DOUG
Why do you doubt that people can cooperate to get a particular answer? That is exactly how the ideomotor effect works with Ouija boards. The Ouija board phenomenon is not new, nor is it a mystery. The ideomotor effect is operative, even with two, three, or four people. They don't have to first agree on an answer for the effect to work.

The problem with this discussion - it's on another thread as well - is that the kind of experiences I've had are not replicable. That makes them untestible. If it cannot be tested, it cannot be proved or disproved. It's fine for you to say that they are not true because they cannot be proved, and even that everything testible has been proven false - no problem - but they are my experiences and I will not deny them.

DOUG
I still don't know enough about your experiences to give you specifics, but you can rest assured that yours would not be the first such claims, and after a century of investigation, paranormal researchers still have nothing to show for all their efforts except negative results. Perhaps there IS a nonsupernatural explanation for your experiences.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

I'll give you multiple subconscious psychomotor movements on Ouija Boards, but not writing coherent, legible, letters. especially not long ones, repeated over a decade. - That's somebody's conscious mind - on this or some other plane.

[Dardedar]

I'll give you multiple subconscious psychomotor movements on Ouija Boards, but not writing coherent, legible, letters. especially not long ones, repeated over a decade. - That's somebody's conscious mind - on this or some other plane.

DAR
No no, Doug is right on this. This is well studied. Writing coherent legible letters or even an entire series of books by Ouija Boards is not a problem. There is a whole series of books called the letters from Michael written this way. I have read them all. It became an entire movement. Go back a decade or two earlier and we have Jane Roberts channelling "Seth" by Ouija board. I have read all of her books as well. This was also turned into an industry with annual conventions etc. As I remember these were all written via the ideomoter effect, using some variation (there are many) of the Ouija board.

Your beliefs about the supernatural based upon past claims are safe Barabara. They cannot possibly be proven wrong. It's like my mother, a Jehovah's Witness, who believes that Jesus returned to rule the earth in 1914. All Jehovah's Witnesses believe this, and no one can prove them wrong (but you can point out that the bit about Jesus returning INVISIBLY wasn't added until AFTER 1914). Did this cause a mass exodus for the JW's? No. People just rationalize it and go on. The best we can do is test claims that are testable and see what happens. We have about 130 years of careful research now and the record is clear. If someone as competent as Susan Blackmore (or Ray Hyman, the fellow I had showed a pic of at the last meeting) had found otherwise it would have turned our understanding of the nature of reality on it's head. But they didn't.

We can suggest natural solutions to these supernatural anecdotes (I have them too), usually, and recommend that occam's razor be applied and that David Hume's short essay on miracles be read (reproduced for you below) but that's about it. Claims that are stated vague enough provide nothing to grasp onto. Stating there is a some kind phenomenon which disappears when someone attempts to measure or observe it certainly seems a blatant attempt to elude falsification. I am reminded of a little example Carl Sagan gave on this:

***
THE CLAIM: "'A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage.'
[snip]
'Show me,' you say.
I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle - but no dragon.
'Where's the dragon?' you ask.
'Oh, she's right here,' I reply, waving vaguely. 'I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon.'
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.
'Good idea,' I say, 'but this dragon floats in the air.'
Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
'Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.'
You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.
'Good idea, except she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint
won't stick.'
And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work. Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exits? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so."
--Carl Sagan's *The Demon-Haunted World, Science as a Candle in the Dark* (pg. 171)

He also wrote this, which specifically address the JW's and their 1914 claim:

"Doctrines that make no predictions are less compelling than those which make correct predictions; they are in turn more successful than doctrines that make false predictions. But not always. One prominent American religion confidently predicted that the world would end in 1914. Well, 1914 has come and gone, and-- while the events of that year were certainly of some importance -- the world does not, at least so far as I can see, seem to have ended.
There are at least three responses that an organized religion can make in the face of such a failed and fundamental prophecy. They could have said, "Oh, did we say '1914'? So sorry, we meant '2014'. A slight error in calculation. Hope you weren't inconvenienced in any way." But they did not. They could have said, "Well, the world *would* have ended, except we prayed very hard and interceded with god and He spared the Earth" Instead, they did something much more ingenious. They announced that the world *had* in fact ended in 1914, and if the rest of us hadn't noticed, that was our lookout.
It is astonishing in the face of such transparent evasions that this religion has any adherents at all. But religions are tough. Either they make no contentions which are subject to disproof or they quickly redesign doctrine after disproof. the fact that religions can be so shamelessly dishonest, so contemptuous of the intelligence of their adherents, and still flourish does not speak very well for the tough-mindedness of the believers. But it does indicate, if a demonstration were needed, that near the core of the religion experience is something remarkably resistant to rational inquiry.
--quote from "Broca's Brain" by Carl Sagan, p. 332, twelfth edition

My opinion on life after death? I'm for it. But the evidence is not. This reminds me Doug, we should put a tract together on the scientific data we do have regarding personal extinction at death. I didn't know until a few years ago that there even was such evidence. Many people don't know that there are powerful evidenced based rational arguments against immortality or some kind of existence after death.

D.
----------------------
David Hume:
On Miracles

The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) launched an effective critique of miraculous claims. This sceptical rationalism was a major challenge to religious belief throughout the later 18th and 19th centuries.

From David Hume. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. Why is it more than probable, that all men must die; that lead cannot, of itself, remain suspended in the air; that fire consumes wood, and is extinguished by water; unless it be, that these events are found agreeable to the laws of nature, and there is required a violation of these laws, or in other words, a miracle to prevent them? Nothing is esteemed a miracle, if it ever happen in the common course of nature. It is no miracle that a man, seemingly in good health, should die on a sudden: because such a kind of death, though more unusual than any other, has yet been frequently observed to happen. But it is a miracle, that a dead man should come to life; because that has never been observed in any age or country. There must, therefore, be a uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation....

The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), 'That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish....' When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

In the foregoing reasoning we have supposed, that the testimony, upon which a miracle is founded, may possibly amount to an entire proof, and that the falsehood of that testimony would be a real prodigy: But it is easy to shew, that we have been a great deal too liberal in our concession, and that there never was a miraculous event established on so full an evidence.

From David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, L. A. Selby Bigge, ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902), pp. 114-16.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/hume-miracles.html

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

If I read the story correctly, this was not a Ouija Board phenomena - it was something known as automatic writing (the article included the comment that the handwriting was not that of either parent - a claim I discount, since writing using a planchet would automatically disguise anyone's handwriting - but if we're talking about handwriting at all, we aren't talking about Ouija Boards).

When I talk about not testible, I'm not talking about your invisible dragon, I just mean the phenomena I've experienced are not replicable on demand. The message to me from my deceased father via my sister's deceased son is a good example. I was investigating something personal. My sister, who lives in another state & we communicate maybe once a year, didn't know anything about it. I thought I'd found the very distressing to me answer. The next day she called me, something she has done maybe twice in 10 years (this was over 10 years ago now, and she has called me maybe once since, with no "paranormal" messages), and said that while she was meditating, she heard her son's voice telling her that Daddy had been trying to reach me, but had been unable to and to tell me, "He didn't do that."

Now I can't replicate that - neither the phenomenon nor the condition that called it into being. All I can say is the behavior pattern is not normal for the living human being involved and the message addressed an issue that I had not discussed with anyone but a counselor. I can't say whether or not my sister was deluding herself when she heard her son's voice. I can say the message (which I've just given the gist of) was quite specific, was specific to my issue, and my sister didn't know about my issue. Thus I have evidence that convinces me that occasionally paranormal things occur - but are not testible, and therefore are unlikely to convince anyone else.

You guys don't have to keep telling me about Ouija Boards & seances (or invisible dragons) - I'm totally with you on those - the processes are such that should be replicable and verifiable and they don't hold up. I'm just saying that I've had experiences that aren't replicable, and as much verification as is possible under the circumstances held up. I'll give you 99.9% is fraud or self-delusion - but I'm hanging on to that other .1%.

[Dardedar]

If I read the story correctly, this was not a Ouija Board phenomena - it was something known as automatic writing...

DAR
It's the same effect. There are no end of ways playing with the effect whether it is twitching sticks, swinging pendulums whatever. I pinched this from a New Age site (really):

"Skeptics point out that automatic writing claimed to be of supernatural origins is a parlor game that has little more effect than to spark creativity in the minds of the participants. They claim, as with other paranormal phenomena, that the subconscious of those performing the writing is the only thing influencing their actions and that there is no solid evidence that any messages are coming from anywhere other than the minds of the person holding the pencil. This is referred to as the ideomotor effect."

http://www.crystalinks.com/automatic_writing.html

Here is what I believe. I don't believe in psychic powers for two reasons:

a) We have no reason to believe they should or could work
b) Whenever they are properly tested they fail. No exceptions.

Now, if we are to believe that they only work, on occasion, when no one is looking, then this is very much like Sagan's magic dragon. Perhaps astrology only works when you don't test it. Maybe Sagan's magic dragon is sitting on my shoulder right now and conversing with another one on my other shoulder. I am sure I could hire a psychic to tell me what they are saying. There is no end.

That said, regarding your .1%, I'll give you that and more (maybe 1%). Quantum mechanics has given us glimpses of reality stranger than we CAN imagine (as Einstein famously said) and it is my understanding it is extremely well established science (things as mundane as our TV sets and cell phones make use of relativistic properties). So at the end of the day we all decide where we are going to set the bar and what we are going to let through into our personal belief system. When I offer the $1,000 prize for a demonstration of paranormal abilities it is not with certain knowledge that it cannot be demonstrated. Remember that for the vast majority of my life I believed all of this stuff. I would love to be able to confirm it, discover the worlds first psyhic who can actually do something and turn our understanding of reality on it's head.

I just don't think it is very likely to happen.

D.
----------------------
"I've gone into thousands of [fortune teller's
parlors], and have been told thousands of
things, but nobody ever told me I was a
policewoman getting ready to arrest her."
-- NYC detective

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

This is why I tend to believe this story - if the automatic writing was being done by one person, I'd have agreed with you, but this required both parents hands on the thing that held the pencil/pen/writing implement. It didn't work with only one. The letters continued until one of the parents died.

The category of "untestible but I believe" is not the same as your invisible dragon. The ones I've experienced were "oncers" - an unpredicted, unpredictable, unrecorded act, not a physical item that one could come back to or weigh and measure. Maybe someday there will be a way to prove them, but considering what they are - actions in response to nonrepeating stimuli - it's not likely. We'll see - or we won't - as the case may be.

[Doug]

The category of "untestible but I believe" is not the same as your invisible dragon. The ones I've experienced were "oncers" - an unpredicted, unpredictable, unrecorded act, not a physical item that one could come back to or weigh and measure. Maybe someday there will be a way to prove them, but considering what they are - actions in response to nonrepeating stimuli - it's not likely. We'll see - or we won't - as the case may be.

DOUG
It is not clear to me that someone allegedly getting a "message" is strong evidence. Mediums routinely provide "messages" that amount to nothing, objectively speaking. But people close to the deceased read a lot into the mundane.

[Doug]

This is why I tend to believe this story - if the automatic writing was being done by one person, I'd have agreed with you, but this required both parents hands on the thing that held the pencil/pen/writing implement. It didn't work with only one. The letters continued until one of the parents died.

DOUG
Again: the ideomotor effect has been tested ad nauseum and it works with one, two, three, or four people at least. Maybe more. It is a natural phenomenon.